Researchers at the University of California Berkeley have deduced that when it comes to emissions of greenhouse gasses and consumption of fossil fuels, you’re doing the planet a favor if you take a plane rather than a train. This robs the current administration of an environmental justification for its plans to launch for a national network of high speed intercity rail corridors.
Trains for public transportation may have their place in America’s future, but this is evidence enough that the government ought to drop the environmental pitch and the high-speed rail boondoggle and instead focus on expanding our subway and bus networks within the major cities to reduce traffic congestion. The greenhouse effect is still, after all, a theory. Chicago’s traffic jams are well established facts.